PC freezing at random moments

Steeps

Steeps

Steeps

Soldato
Joined
8 Nov 2003
Posts
5,613
Location
Bedfordshire
thought it would be better here than the SFF forum as i don't believe it is something unique to shuttles and anyone could probably help, but basically my shuttle sb75g2 will lock up at random moments.

the shuttle was going to be used as a media centre, so we started off installing gentoo but half way through the install the screen became slightly messy, characters randomly changing. the graphics card was changed for another one, but in bios after bootup it would randomly freeze, and if the unit was reset it would not POST at all.

fastforward a few months: rebuilt system, it stayed on for quite a long time in bios just checking temp (cpu not going above 40'c, which is good considering there are 4 computers on in my room at the moment), restarted the unit and successfully installed XP including restarts, which really shocked me!

however the random freezes have returned, its happened in bios, its happened on startup, and also locked up whilst in xp after a couple of mins. the whole unit just stops responding and i have no idea whats going on.

things i'm going to try:

going to get some new ram and see if that makes a difference
already on a second (third if including the matrox) graphics card
reseat heatsinks, overheating issue?

spec of box:
shuttle SB75G2 and motherboard
P4 3.0ghz w. HT
512 ram (one stick)
40gb 5400rpm drive (new one coming in post)
GeForce2 Ti (waiting for a bargain to appear in MM)
cd drive

thanks for any help, i'd like some ideas on what might be causing the freezing.
 
have you checked "event manager" to see if there are any errors around the time it freezes?

o we started off installing gentoo but half way through the install the screen became slightly messy, characters randomly changing. the graphics card was changed for another one, but in bios after bootup it would randomly freeze, and if the unit was reset it would not POST at all.
Click to expand...

Pls clarify:

Did changing the gfx card get rid of the messy characters?

Once you got a replacement gfx card and after installing win xp it would randomly froze? So you managed to install win xp without any errors?

Thereafter once you "reset" it would not post at all? Was this occasionally or all the time? was this after you installed win xp without recieving any errors during installation of win xp?

Please clarify the above?

It could be hardware, a sharing conflict or alternatively may even be software.....

Lemme know about the above....
 
i haven't a clue about the gentoo thing as my brother was doing it (far too complicated for me) but we only tried that with the matrox card (all i had to hand) which is currently running my sisters computer. as my brother was only around for the weekend i gave up on the linux idea and went to windoze.

i was really suprised it managed to do a full install, when i first booted it up i sat it in bios just looking at the temps and voltages, after 15 minutes it was still working and reading, so i grabbed cd and did the install. a few restarts and i thought it was stable but i was in bios when it first froze again. tried reset, nothing happened so i turned it off. waited and then booted windows where it lasted about 3 minutes before dying. did the same again but loaded event manager. no faults were recorded at all, and the only hardware faults were the ethernet and sound controllers which i haven't installed the drivers for. and then it died again.

every time it freezes it does not POST on a reset, i have to turn it off and on again a few seconds later.

i'm going to try another graphics card tomorrow. would be good if i could get hold of a pci card as every part i have tried works in othe computers.

thanks
 
just booted it up again as i have a new hard disk however it is still locking up. it lasted about 30 seconds this time in bios as i was just reading the voltages.

not sure if its any use but here they are anyway:
CPU: 1.44
AGP: 1.48
3.3+: 3.28
5+: 4.99
12+: 12.22
12-: -12.11
DDR: 2.6
+5VSB: 4.97
battery: 3.28

temps when it froze:
cpu: 43'c
system: 37'c

when it died this time, a character was missing from the fan 3 speed readout for some reason. could a dodgy header cause this problem?

something tells me it is heat related as the longer the unit has been on, the shorter time it is stable for. i've changed all the heatsinks in the shuttle but they are all getting warm as they do in my other shuttle (so contact is good)
 
Is that a Northwood, or Prescott CPU. If thats Northwood, the CPU voltage is a little low. Sometimes a small boost (+0.025V or whatever the smallest overvolt allowed in bios is) can improve stability if its the CPU thats causing the problem).

Some memory tests could be usefull, Run memtest86 for a few hours (all night is good), and see if any errors are reported. Even if the computer freezes, as long as it doesnt reboot, you should see if any errors were detected before that happened.

Some DDR memory likes to have a little extra power too, increasing the DDR from 2.5v standard to 2.6v might be enough to get it stable assuming there is no major fault.

Load up something like MBM5, to monitor your system voltages with windows idle, and under load. The voltages will change slightly, but a major drop in voltage when the system is underload could indicate a problem. (Although motherboard voltages are not that accurate, they can still give clues into system problems). Or just a digital multimeter for more accurate readings. Even a 10 pound 'CheapoStore' multimeter is a lot more accurate than the average motherboard.
 
problem is i seem to be very fortunate with the windows install as the longest it has been stable since is about 2 minutes where it just dies, therefore trying to run tests is going to be impossible. i'll try a few more volts but i've never played with voltages before :(

edit: just got these voltages from my other shuttle:
CPU 1.52
agp 1.50
3.3+ 3.34
5+ 5.05
12+ 12.41
12- 11.86
ddr 2.64
+5vsb 5.02
batt 3.29

so it looks like the cpu might not be getting enough volts, but i cannot get the system booted for long enough now to up it a bit :(
 
Last edited:
Memtest 86 doesnt use windows, you burn a bootable CD on your working computer, and see if the unstable computer can boot of the disk. As long as you can get into bios and set CDrom as bootable.

If you do try voltage changes, only increase them by the smallest step possible, and as I said Northwood or Prescott CPU does make a difference. Northwoods run on 1.5 - 1.55V, while Prescotts run on 1.3-1.5V (I Think)
 
How many sticks of ram do you have in the computer, Remove all except 1 stick, and see if that lets you get into bios and/or load up a bootable CD with Memtest 86 on it. Dont even bother trying to get into windows until you have sucessfully run Memtest86 for at least an hour with no errors, and 6 hours is better.

Also remove all extra hardware from the system. Hard disks, Soundcard, basically have Motherboard, CPU, 1 stick of Ram, and the CDRom drive to load Memtest 86.
 
Last edited:
the cpu is a northwood, just booted it up after a day off, in bios upped the voltage to 1.512v, but after a reboot the motherboard monitor said it was only at 1.48v (probably inaccurate), restarted again and it locked up again.

shuttles only have space for 2 sticks of ram, currently i have a single stick of corsair 512mb DDR500 which was pulled from another shuttle that was running dual channel. got some more parts in the post hopefully so i'll try different cpu/ram brands/graphics cards etc when that arrives.
 
its not the ram or the graphics card, just got a spare set of both and booted the system again. upped the voltage of the cpu to 1.525v, which now reads as 1.5 exactly in bios. it still locks up exactly as before, but as today is colder it seemed to last longer. its either the psu or one of my aftermarket coolers.

bios readings on lockup:
cpu 1.50
agp 1.50 (but when it died it shows 1150v! :O )
3.3 3.26
5 4.97
+12 12.28
-12 11.86
ddr 2.6
5vsb 4.94
batt 3.26

temps:
system 34
cpu 39
 
no i've tried just about everything now, 2 cpu's, 3 sets of ram, 3 graphics cards, 2 psu's, 2 hard drives, cd rom drives, heatsinks. EVERYTHING and it still freezes the same way. everything works fine in other systems so it must be a dead shuttle. its a shame its taken this long to come to a conclusion because i doubt shuttle will do anything about it now :(

bought it 1.5 years ago from a forum member and i just didn't have the time then to test everything. now its bitten me back :(
 
i don't get it. spent the best part of 3 hours gutting and swapping chassis as i might aswell use the 3ghz chip in my working shuttle (swapping chassis because i cut the grille out)

so far its been sitting in bios for 10 minutes without locking up, changed some options, saved, restarted successfully and is still in bios reading temps after 30 minutes and it still hasn't crashed yet! i'm not jumping for joy yet though as it managed an xp install before, touch wood it might be alright :)

edit: think i killed it :(

is it terminal?

P1010026.JPG

P1010028.JPG
 
Last edited:
ok, graphics card seems fine, but it locked up in bios again, booted xp and it threw up an error message, and died again.

this is the code from the "serious error"

BCCode: 100000ea
BCP1 : 8653d870
BCP2 : 8653a618
BCP3 : f7c61cbc
BCP4 : 00000001

:(
 
not getting the error now that i changed back to an ati card, the first error code did suggest it was a driver issue but i'm not getting anything in event viewer which could explain this.

few other things i've noticed:
- the GPU is getting VERY HOT, i can still feel the burn on my fingers from the 3 gpu's i've used. all of them were overheating
- the screen either freezes or there's no signal, again this seems to be related to the heat on the graphics card
- when it dies in bios, there is normally a problem with the voltage reading for the agp port (says 1150v instead of 1.50v)

once cooled down the system works again, until its run in and then dies again. very regular. could there be an issue with the agp port? is there a way to check this without buying a pci card, as sourcing one would be very difficult.

thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom